Legroom refers to available space to an aft seated passenger, which is commonly considered as a critical indicator of a passenger's comfort, especially for long-haul flights (e.g. more than 6 hours). Seat pitch refers to the distance between a point on one seat to the same point on the seat immediately in front. Seat pitch, depth of seatback structure, cushion and the amenities installed on the seatback may determine the legroom available to an aft seated passenger.
FIG. 1 shows an image of a conventional airline seatback 100. Amenities that are commonly provided at the seatback 100 for the passenger's use during a long-haul flight may include In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) display 102, an IFE controller 104 at an upper portion of the seatback 100, a tray table 106 at adjacent middle portion of the seatback 100, a literature pocket 108, which holds e.g. safety information at a directly visible location for passengers when they are seated, at adjacent lower portion of the seatback 100, and other items such as a cup holder 110, and a coat hanger 112. These amenities often encroach on the space available to the aft seated passenger, thus reducing the passenger's legroom and potentially his comfort level.
FIG. 2 shows a schematic side view of two adjacent rows of conventional passenger seats illustrating legroom 202 between and a seat 204 and an aft seat 206, as well as seat pitch 208 between the seats 204, 206. Typically, the seat pitch 208 is kept as low as possible to maximize the number of rows of seats that may be installed. In this example, for a seat pitch of 81.3 cm (32 inches), the legroom 202, as defined by the distance between an edge 210 of the aft seat 206 to a literature pocket 212 at the seatback of the seat 204, is about 27.2 cm (10.7 inches). Such an amount of legroom may be rather limited, especially for tall passengers.
With reference to FIG. 1, the seatback tray table 106 is typically pivotally mounted such that it can be stowed against the seatback 100 and hinged down and away from the seatback 100 into a generally horizontal position for use by the passenger seated aft of the seat. Conventionally, the cup holder 110 is usually installed on the tray table 106, and the coat hanger 112 is traditionally integrated with the tray table latch with a small hook due to space constrain. With such arrangements, when the tray table 106 is stowed, the cup holder 110 becomes inaccessible. The small hook is limited in use due to its size and position. This may cause some inconvenience to passengers.
More recently, there are passenger seats that provide an independent cup holder 110 behind the tray table 106 (as shown in FIG. 1), and in this case the cup holder 110 will not be accessible while the tray table 106 is deployed. An independent coat hanger 112 may be provided at the side of seat to move away from the tray table 106. However, this may cause confusion between passengers as to the correct hanger corresponding to their respective seats.
A need therefore exists to provide devices and methods that seek to address at least one of the above problems, or to provide a useful alternative.